


Why don't you be you, and I'll be me?

by orphan_account, Prop_Logic



Category: Rugby RPF, Rugby Union RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Break Up, Coming Out, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, Marital Problems, More characters to be added, Self-Discovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:19:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21920887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prop_Logic/pseuds/Prop_Logic
Summary: “If you love me at all, it’s as a sister – you’re not going to hurt me anymore than you already have, so you might as well come clean, you know.”Owen and Georgie have been fighting for weeks - months, even. It's frustrating, it's tiring, and Owen would have given anything for it to end - just not like this.
Relationships: Owen Farrell & Andy Farrell, Owen Farrell & Colleen Farrell, Owen Farrell & Georgie Farrell, Owen Farrell & James Haskell, Owen Farrell/James Haskell (one-sided)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So... This is what happens when I get listening to random songs. Er... I am still writing That's Where I Belong, but it's been a busy few weeks and this just sort of happened. I mean, I also planned on writing about that Munster medic being a *cough*dick*cough* bit of a disrespectful... You know what? I'm just not going to finish that sentence. Anyway, I didn't get around to it. 
> 
> But have... this... instead...?

They’re fighting again.

Owen doesn’t remember what started this one anymore, but his parents have left with Gabe for the time being, taking Tommy along with them, and Owen can’t keep up with his own mouth, the spiteful comments falling from his lips as his hands whip around him, Georgie shouting right back with a face as flushed as his must be.

“You don’t have time for me anymore, and you don’t even fucking care!” he just about hears over his own words.

“You think _I_ don’t have time?” he changes tack immediately, indignant. “You’re the one who’s never around when I’m not training! Don’t go pinning this on me when –”

“But you’re always training!” she screams over the top of him, tears glistening in her eyes as her knuckles whiten around her phone, and Owen hates that she’s trying to play the victim, trying to act like she’s faultless in all this. “You want to know what your problem is?”

“_My_ problem?” he laughs incredulously, not in the slightest bit amused. “_Your_ problem is you always think _I_’m the one with a problem!”

It must be the third time this week that an argument has dissolved into a shouting match, and as for the month… He’s lost count. All he knows is that it’s frustrating that they’re back to this, and right now, he’s furious with her anyway. Why does she always have to go and get so fucking pissy with him? It’s like she thinks he’s done something wrong, but she won’t even tell him what – or admit to her own mistakes.

“Your problem,” she repeats as if she hasn’t heard him, eyes blazing with savage fury, “Is you’re too busy pretending to be some straight alpha male to even spend time with the family you’ve dragged along into this fucking façade!”

“W – What?” Owen splutters, because he’s never heard something so delusional in his life – and she’s come out with many utterly moronic ideas over the last half hour. “What kind of fucked up fantasy is that meant to be? I haven’t dragged you anywhere, let alone into that – whatever that was! _You_ were happy enough to marry me, if you haven’t forgotten!”

“Yeah, because I still hoped maybe you weren’t gayer than a fucking rainbow!” Georgie yells right back, and she really is crying now. “We could’ve been _so_ much happier if you could forget about your stupid masculinity and admit to the rest of us that you never loved me in the first place!”

At that, Owen has to stop and take a deep breath, because _no_, of course he loves her, and _wait_…

“I’m not gay,” he tells her, bewildered, and she stares at him for a second before snorting bitterly.

“It’s one thing staying quiet about it when you think I don’t know – the least you could do is tell the truth when I’ve already fucking _said_ it.”

“I’m not!” he flushes, anger mixing with a sense of humiliation as it starts to dawn on him that she really does think he’s…

How the fuck has she come up with…?

Honestly, if she thinks she can turn this all on him by making up some shit about his sexuality, she’d better think again, because this is completely ludicrous. There’s absolutely no way…

“Oh, so you’re just so utterly repulsed at the idea of having sex with _me_ that you had to spend ten minutes talking yourself into it on our _wedding_ night, then? But all other girls are fine?”

“That’s not –” Owen stops, glaring at her, and tries not to feel embarrassed about that reminder; it was perfectly normal, as much as she likes to bring it up pointedly every now and then. “I was nervous!”

“You had such an obvious crush on Hask a few years ago it was actually embarrassing,” Georgie responds flatly, and for several seconds, Owen has to struggle for a response to that one – but it’s ridiculous; of course he didn’t.

“Hask?” he manages, and his voice is weaker than he would have liked; the last thing he needs is to make her think that he’s actually paying this stupid idea any mind, let alone that it’s affecting him. “Why would I…? Hask is…”

_Male_.

“If you’re so convinced that I’m magically gay, why the fuck are we in a relationship?” he snaps when no other words come to him immediately, hands clenching into fists as she drags a sleeve over her eyes.

“Because I was stupid enough to think that you were bi instead, and if I loved you for long enough, maybe you’d actually return the feelings,” she bites out, then sniffs. “Because _I_ actually loved you. And then when I realised there wasn’t any chance in the fucking Universe of that, I just wanted you to be the one to tell me the truth.”

“But I’m _not_!” he insists, frustrated. “I love you – you _know_ that!”

Shaking her head, she turns away as if taking a moment to compose herself, her chest rising and falling as she sucks in an audible breath, and when she speaks again, her voice is thick, pained.

“If you love me at all, it’s as a sister – you’re not going to hurt me anymore than you already have, so you might as well come clean, you know.”

Speechless, Owen searches for a way to explain to her that she’s got it all wrong, that he’s straight and entirely devoted to her, but somehow, the words seem to fail him.

“But I’m not gay,” he tells her, and even to his own ears, it’s entirely unconvincing – but it’s _true_. “I swear, Georgie – why would I be with you if…?”

Apparently incredulous, she chokes out a wet laugh.

“Because you’re the most sexually repressed man I’ve ever met in my entire life?” she throws over her shoulder, drawing in a deep breath before turning to face him, and he forces himself to meet her eyes, trying to work out where this is coming from and how he can get through to her. “If you were any further in the closet, you’d end up in Narnia.”

“Funny,” he grits out. “_I’m not gay_.”

“We’ve never had sex without you closing your eyes for most of it.”

“That’s just…”

He doesn’t know how to explain it.

“That’s you picturing a _man_. One of your teammates, I’d guess.”

“I don’t –!” Owen’s cheeks flood with heat, and he has to look away from her growing sneer, unable to believe he’s even entertaining this ridiculous, paranoid suggestion.

He’s never pictured anyone else _once_ while having sex with her, never mind one of his teammates. Yes, they’re good-looking men, for the most part, but that doesn’t mean he’s attracted to them, and certainly, he doesn’t imagine them instead of Georgie. The idea of sex with Jamie or Kruiso would just be…

Imagining them instead of his own wife would be all kinds of wrong.

“Georgie, come on,” he tries, slumping back against the doorframe behind him. “If you’re insecure about our relationship or something, you could’ve just said…”

“Insecure?” she repeats. “_Insecure_? I am _past _insecure; I’m just waiting for your inevitable affair at this point. There’s only so long you’re going to stay faithful to me when you can’t even get it up for a woman.”

And now she’s questioning his performance in bed – like she’s _ever_ had a problem before – and surely, they’re old enough to see past that? Owen wants to be the bigger person out of the two of them, but there’s no denying that the comment stings, and he can’t just leave it.

“So Tommy just came out of nowhere, did he?”

“Eyes closed,” she fires back at once. “Like I said. Owen, there’s really no point in keeping this up anymore.”

Stomach twisting, Owen clenches his jaw. Frustratingly, it’s incredibly hard to come up with anything to explain to her that she’s completely wrong, and if he’d known she was going to turn into one of _those_ women, he’d never have married her. No, he would have, because he loves her, more than anyone else – and there have _been_ others, who just weren’t as wonderful as her but were definitely female, and if he could just remember them at the moment; they _do_ exist.

For now, though, he has more pressing issues to deal with.

“I’m _not_ going to cheat on you,” he tells her through gritted teeth, trying to impress his sincerity onto her.

“No, you’re not,” she agrees – _thank fuck_. “Because we’re done, Owen. I’m fed up of this charade, and if you won’t even _admit_ it…”

_What?_

Owen opens his mouth to speak, but no sound comes out. She’s breaking up with him, because she’s got it into her head that he’s…? He isn’t. Of course he isn’t. He just needs to explain that to her, and quickly, but he can’t find anything to make it clear when everything that he’s already tried hasn’t worked.

He has to do something – anything.

“You’re breaking up with me?” he manages weakly, and his voice cracks as he does so, her expression almost seeming to soften for an instant before her gaze frosts over once more and she nods, short and curt. “Georgie, I – This is a joke, right?”

“Does it look like a joke to you?” she counters, lips twisting briefly as her voice seems to strain.

“But I’m not –” he has to stop and clear his throat roughly, eyes starting to sting with tears of his own. “I’m _not_ gay, I swear. I wouldn’t do that to you. Please, Georgie, just…”

“Owen, _please_,” she whispers, sniffing. “Just tell me the truth.”

Blankly, he shakes his head, then realises what that implies and hurries to correct himself.

“I’m not – Georgie, I promise, I swear, I’m straight. I don’t have anything against gay people – I have gay friends – but I’m not – I’m not…”

“_Owen_…”

She squeezes her eyes tightly shut, shaking her head, and his heart drops with the knowledge that there’s nothing he can do, no way to make her see that she’s it for him. They have a son. They’re married, and they have Tommy, and Ron, and she’s throwing that away because she’s so convinced that he’s…?

“Please, if you care about me at all – if you ever did…” Her voice hitches briefly, her teeth digging into her bottom lip, and he opens his mouth to reassure her, but can’t find anything before she continues. “Then tell me the truth.”

“I _have_,” he tries, but she shakes her head again, shoulders slumping. “Of course I care about you – I love you, I promise. Georgie, I’ll do _anything_ – what about Tommy?”

Surely, she’ll listen to him for the sake of their son? She can’t just be giving up so easily, especially not because of something that she’s come up with in her head.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she tells him, something in her tone so shattered that it breaks his heart as she slumps, all energy seeming to drain from her. “I can’t go on having to – to pretend that you – Owen, you _have_ to understand how hard it is for me. Maybe you do love me platonically or something, but that’s – that’s not enough anymore. Not from my own husband. I don’t think _I_ even love you that way anymore. I just – I need you to be _honest_ with me, for once – please…”

“I have been,” he pleads, not bothering to hide that he’s begging with her anymore – to stay, to see reason, to trust him. “I’ve never lied to you.”

A sob spills forth from her trembling lips, and his chest squeezes in as she comes apart before him, awareness that he can do nothing to help her slamming home like a hammer to the gut. If she won’t listen to him, there’s nothing he can do, and she’s just going to tear apart their happiness while he stands and watches. A sense of helplessness falls over him as he struggles for something more to say, because there’s nothing – nothing that she’ll believe, never mind allow to change her mind.

Before his slowly blurring eyes, she drops into an armchair to bury her face in her hands, shoulders rising and falling with each hitching breath as she shakes with the depth of her pain – an imagined pain, Owen reminds himself firmly, hands clenching at his sides.

_Why won’t she just _listen_?_

“Let’s talk about this,” he tries desperately, because she might be ready to give up on them, but he isn’t. “Just… Why don’t you tell me why you think I’m – why you think I’m…?”

He can’t say it, but he tries his best to wait patiently while she slowly calms herself, stomach twisting in anxious knots as he prays for her to just hear him and believe him – why would she even dream that he’d lie to her? Unfortunately, the look she finally fixes him with doesn’t seem promising; she almost seems to be in the midst of a realisation, her eyes widening as her lips part.

“You don’t know,” she whispers, unblinking in her stare. “You haven’t been lying, have you? You actually _don’t know_ – oh my _God_…”

“What?” he blinks, because this definitely isn’t what he meant to happen. “No, Georgie, seriously –”

“Okay,” she straightens, sucking in a deep, shaky breath. “Listen to me for five minutes, Owen.”

_No, not again_. He hoped, just for a second, that he’d gotten through, and he can’t handle going over all of this again, because even beyond the desperation of trying to convince her otherwise, the constant insistence _is_ starting to get to him.

“Georgie –”

“I’m going to tell you exactly why I think you’re gay,” she speaks firmly over the top of him, unyielding as she fixes him with a hard look. “I think you’re gay because I have _seen_ the way you look at men. Maybe you don’t remember, but we once got drunk and watched some film – I don’t remember what – and all you could talk about was how hot The Rock was.”

Owen’s pretty sure he would remember if he’d ever done something so… weird. That’s just not him, drunk or otherwise; yes, he can see that The Rock is attractive – _very _attractive – but that hardly means that _he_’s interested. He’s not. Of course he isn’t.

“But it’s not just when you’re drunk,” Georgie continues. “Every time we’ve watched porn together, you _never_ look at the women – and there are other actors you _clearly_ find attractive.”

“Like who?” Owen snorts, and regrets it almost immediately when she raises an eyebrow at him.

“Chris Hemsworth,” she starts, and is she _really_ counting them off on her fingers? “The Rock, as I said… God, I swear you had _such_ a thing for Bruce Willis when we first met…”

“They’re just good actors,” he cuts her off hastily, unwilling to let her continue down such a ridiculous path. “And –”

“And then there’s Hask, as I mentioned before – you were head over heels for him, and I wasn’t the only one to see that. Chloe once asked how I could stand it.”

“Even if I _was_ gay, I wouldn’t be into Hask,” Owen defends, unwilling to address that last sentence and think about anyone else assuming something so blatantly untrue about his sexuality; isn’t his own wife enough?

“Why not?”

For several seconds, Owen struggles for a reason. He just wouldn’t, and that’s all there is to it.

“Oh – and Schalk Brits. You were absolutely _crushed_ when he punched you. But Hask particularly – you’d drop _everything_ whenever he wanted something from you. It was honestly embarrassing; I’m surprised he never realised.”

“I didn’t –”

“Owen, _listen_ to me,” Georgie cuts him off insistently. “I spent _years_ clinging onto the idea that you might not be gay. If you ever showed any _inkling_ of liking women, I’d know.”

“And you think I _wouldn’t_ know if I was gay?” he demands, face heating once more, but she only rolls her eyes.

The instant dismissal rankles him more than a little, but before he can protest against it, she continues.

“So name me one woman you’ve found attractive.”

Well, that’s easy.

“You.”

Her snort is almost derisive.

“You know what?” she sighs a split-second later. “I’ll humour you. Take a few minutes, and try to imagine something about me that actually turns you on.”

That has to be simple, doesn’t it? He just has to choose pretty much anything, and… Or at least her breasts, maybe? Or her arse?

She’s his wife. He _knows_ he’s attracted to her. He has been for years. It’s just the pressure of the situation and the stress of the last while getting to him; if he can calm down and consider this properly, he’ll be fine.

“There’s nothing, is there?” she asks, quiet and subdued, almost defeated.

“I’m not gay,” he tells her, but his own voice seems to shake as he says it, and for the first time, he has to wonder, just for a second, if…

Quickly, he shakes the doubts away. He’d know if he was. She’s just starting to get to him, is all. There are other women he’s been attracted to, and maybe, somehow, he’s even fallen out of love with her – they _have_ been fighting a lot, lately – but that’s no reason to instantly assume he’s gay. He’s not just going to swear off women if their marriage doesn’t work out.

“Yes, you are. How about you try Hask – see if there’s anything about him…?”

“There won’t be,” he tells her; there’s really no point in trying it, because he knows there won’t be.

“Then you won’t have a problem trying it to prove it?” she returns flatly, and Owen can find nothing to argue against that point, so with a sigh, he closes his eyes and thinks of Hask: the shining eyes that crinkle with his smile; the strong, hard-earned muscles that shift and ripple as he gesticulates wildly to emphasise whatever ridiculous tangent he’s gone off on this time; the solid warmth of his embrace whenever they see each other…

Trying to swallow the lump in his throat, he pushes those thoughts aside. The point isn’t to reminisce on the friendship they used to have, it’s to see if there’s anything that he finds attractive about Hask – but that’s all he’s getting: just normal, platonic thoughts. Hask’s physique has always impressed him, but that’s an admiration thing, and his laughter is just so infectious.

“And how about you try imagining him with his hand around your dick?” Georgie adds dryly. “Never mind – you’re already clearly interested.”

Slowly, Owen glances down at himself, throat running dry with the realisation that he really is starting to get hard, the beginnings of an erection pushing against the front of his jeans. Okay, so maybe that’s not the _first_ time, exactly, but everyone has their weird things that just get them going. Perhaps he’s even used that once or twice with Georgie, but that doesn’t mean…

“That’s not – I’m not –”

“You’re gay,” she tells him, soft and almost pitying now. “You know Will Fraser’s hurt you haven’t told him? I was talking to him at his wedding – he asked if you’d come out to the Sarries boys, or if you were leaving all of them in the dark.”

“Will thinks I’m gay?” Owen manages to choke out, unable to hide his horror at the thought.

_He isn’t gay_. He’s just a normal man, and if his friends really thought something like that, they’d ask, wouldn’t they? She has to be making it up for some fucked up reason – only he never dared ask Loz until the younger man finally came out to them all, and he’d suspected for a long time before that

“Will’s _known_ you at least aren’t straight for about a decade – but he _did_ think you were genuinely interested in me.”

This is too much. Owen can’t handle this, can’t handle knowing that his friends, his friends’ wives, his _own_ wife, all think he’s gay, and he’s never… He’d know if he was.

All the same, somewhere in the back of his head, something whispers that he’s never had a girlfriend before Georgie, and he’s never really had any female friends either. He just met her, and she was nice, and it seemed like the sensible progression to get together. That can’t be _it_, though; he’d have noticed he was different… but he’s never had much time for socialising, what with all the rugby, and the idea of being gay was thrown around like some sort of disease, so maybe, just maybe, he would have repressed any feelings he might have noticed, or even never recognised them for what they were in the first place?

No, of course not. He knows he’s straight.

“You’re good at self-reflection,” Georgie reminds him quietly. “Just treat it like anything else. Have you ever _really_ been attracted to a woman? How many men have you been attracted to and not realised you were?”

The thing is, it’s not just _anything else_. It’s his sexuality, and he can’t be gay; he can’t do that to her. She has to know that, right? He wouldn’t hurt her like that.

If nothing else, he needs to make sure she knows that.

“Georgie, I’m not gay – I wouldn’t hurt you like that. I wouldn’t –”

She’s shaking her head within four words.

“I don’t blame you,” she tells him, soft and gentle. “It’s alright, Owen. There’s nothing wrong with it – you just never realised. Or you never let yourself realise. Just think it through – do you really think so many of the people who know you best would be wrong about this?”

Mute, Owen can only mirror her prior shake of the head, a silent denial of all of this.

“Okay, say you’re straight, or at least not completely gay,” Georgie sits forward, resting her elbows on her knees as her hair falls over her shoulder. “Our relationship is still falling apart; it’s still pretty much inevitable that we’re going to break up. I… Honestly, I don’t know if I really love you that way anymore anyway, never mind how you feel about me. So don’t cling to being straight for the sake of us or Tommy, because that isn’t going to work.”

He doesn’t like how little he feels on hearing that. It hurts that they’ve worked so hard for something and it’s being taken away, but the thought of losing their relationship… Admittedly, there have always been things that have stressed him out about it, but that’s just pressure to perform. He’s always known that he’s competitive, and a perfectionist, and maybe some things never seemed as natural as his teammates gave the impression that it should be, but everyone always boasts, and he’d be the first to admit that he’s introverted and never got as much experience when it comes to interacting with people as some others.

“Say you’re gay,” she continues, eyeing him as if waiting for another insistence that he isn’t, but he feels too tired for that. “You can finally see yourself as who you are and hopefully accept yourself. Yes, our relationship will still be over, but that’s hardly dependent on you being gay. Maybe… Maybe one day, you’ll find a guy you could actually have a better relationship with.”

It’s almost like a sales pitch.

“Do you _want_ me to be gay?” he finds he has to ask, and she smiles wearily.

“No,” she replies; he believes her. “But I know you are. I just want you to be honest with yourself – and with the rest of us.”

For several more seconds, he can only stare at her in silence. Slowly, everything she’s said is starting to sink in, seeping through his skin as he struggles to reconcile with the thought that not only is their relationship over – years of work, of caring for one another, _gone_ in a matter of minutes – but that so many of those close to him think he isn’t straight.

Nauseatingly, he can’t shake the doubts, the thought that maybe he agrees with them.

“But…” he tries, then trails off with no idea of what he could have left to argue against her with. “Georgie, I –”

Again, he gives up.

“It’s alright,” she whispers, something sad in the smile she offers him as her lips tremble through its fragile formation. “We can still be friends – we can still raise Tommy together. We don’t even have to tell people, if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t understand,” he admits, the only words he can find to even begin to express the turmoil inside himself at the moment. “How can I be –? I don’t –”

Cutting himself off yet again, he looks away to shake his head and fights to swallow the lump that forms in his throat. Somehow, the more he thinks on what she’s said, the harder it is to deny any of it, and yet everything in him rebels against the idea that he could know so little about himself.

“Why wouldn’t I – I _know_?” he manages, and humiliatingly, his voice hitches in the middle of the question, cracking to leave the words scattered and uncertain.

“I think…”

Speech fading away, she chews her lip and glances down at her hands.

“I don’t know,” she sighs. “But… You do now?”

For a moment, he hesitates, unsure if he really wants to commit himself to this so quickly, when he hasn’t really had time to think on this properly, but there’s nothing for it; unable to deny everything she’s had to lay bare for him to discover about himself, he nods wordlessly and doesn’t comment on the way she relaxes. Right now, in the wake of their crumbled relationship, there’s nothing to be said. Owen, certainly, is too busy questioning every touch, every word, every moment of comfortable silence, every smile and laugh and…

One day, maybe today or maybe later in the week, the month, the year, he’ll have to explain this to his parents. He’ll have to tell them that somehow, he married someone he wasn’t even attracted to. He’ll have to tell them that he mistook one love for another, and he’ll have to justify the realisation that he was wrong to them, when he’s not sure he can even trust it himself yet. So much time, so many years – they can’t all be nothing, can they?

One day, many years from now, he’ll probably have to explain this to his son.

Before that, he has to explain it to himself – has to explain how, almost three decades into his life, he didn’t even know he wasn’t straight, and he was married to a woman he thought he loved, and he needed her to tell him everything for him to understand that it was all wrong, that he got it all wrong.

He got everything wrong.

He thought Georgie and their marriage would be the rest of his life, and now he’s questioning what place they ever had in his life at all.

“I need to…”

He trails off with no idea of _what_ he needs to do, just that it’s something, and that he can’t be in the same room as her right now anyway. It doesn’t really matter, because she nods without a word and watches him go through red-rimmed eyes, his feet leading him through the house to the front door and outside as his hand finds his phone and lifts it to scroll through his contacts.

“_You alright, Faz?_” Hask asks, audibly surprised to be answering a call from Owen, and for several seconds, Owen’s throat works soundlessly. “_Yeah, babe, it’s Owen – hang on, mate… What’s up?_”

To Owen’s utter mortification, his breath hitches, and quickly, he searches for words, for the reason that he called Hask in the first place. Hask is a good friend, yes, but why him? Why the man that, if Georgie is to be believed, he had a crush on for so long?

“I’m gay,” he blurts out, then the first sob catches in his chest, and he has to press a hand to his mouth in an attempt to stifle it as the long-awaited tears start to fall. “Hask, shit – I – I’m…”

“_You _what_?_”

Hask’s surprise only makes it all worse, and Owen staggers off the doorstep to sit on it instead, dropping his head back against the door as the sobs worsen, ripping the air from his lungs until his head starts to swim.

“_Hang on, Faz, it’s alright – what’re you crying for?_”

Owen doesn’t even know. It just had to come out eventually, and now that he’s said those words aloud, the reality of it all is hitting home, settling into place as a truth he can’t deny. He can’t stop, certainly, and hunching forward relieves the pain in his chest only slightly.

“_I’m not going to react badly, if that’s what you’re worried about._”

He knew that. Probably, it’s why he called; he has absolutely no doubt that Hask will listen to him and accept whatever he has to say. Hask will, somehow, understand, or put everything he can into trying.

“I didn’t – I –”

“_Deep breaths, mate, come on,_” Hask encourages, quietly sympathetic. “_Get yourself under control, then talk to me._”

Honestly, listening to Hask now, Owen can well believe that he had a thing for the man. Maybe he still does.

He doesn’t know; he doesn’t know anything, it seems.

Still, he takes in several gulps of air, swiping roughly at his eyes, and he didn’t think it would work, but somehow, he feels calmer for it. His lips only tremble slightly as he tries to speak, and Hask waits patiently as he stumbles over the words that he needs to get out in order to explain it all.

“I didn’t – didn’t know,” he chokes his way through, Hask a silently comforting presence through the phone. “Georgie – She said she was – she was fed up of pretending, and she wanted me to – to be honest with her, but I didn’t know – I didn’t know I’m gay, and I just – Shit – I don’t even know – I’m not even _attracted_ to her…”

He breaks down again at that, the admission seeming to tear a new hole in his chest, and it hurts so badly to get all of this out, but somehow, he feels a little lighter all the same.

“_So… You’re freaking out about it, is what you’re telling me?_” Hask fills in, over Owen’s desperate gasps for air. “_You’ve just found out – or realised, or whatever – you’re gay, you’re not in love with your wife, and you’re getting yourself all worked up about this. And your first thought was, ‘call Hask, because he’s got great chat and he’ll cheer me up’?_”

Despite himself, Owen manages a breathless whimper of a laugh at that. Of course Hask is going to downplay his other strengths; he always does, away from the watching eyes of social media, when his public persona slips away.

“What – What chat?” he stumbles out. “I only – only started crying after I – after I called you.”

“_Well…_” Hask sighs, good-natured. “_Alright, that’s fair. I’m not sure I’ve got any advice for you other than go with your gut, but if you’ve got anything more to say, I’ll listen – or if you just needed to tell someone that and you want to hang up now…?_”

“Trying to get rid of me?” Owen jokes weakly.

“_Change of roles, right_?” Hask snorts. “_Nah, whatever you need, mate._”

“Thanks,” Owen mumbles, trying not to think about how fucking _supportive_ Hask is being at the moment as his breathing starts to calm again. “So many people knew, and I never even realised. And I’ve got Tommy, but I think – I think we can stay f – friends and raise him to – together…”

Clamping his lips tightly shut, he shuts down his tears as firmly as he can.

“But I don’t know what I’ll tell my parents, or my teammates, or…”

“_Tell them the truth?_” Hask suggests, like it could ever be as simple as that.

_How_, might be the real question, or _what truth?_ Owen’s no longer sure he can tell the truth from his own assumptions, and he’s never been brilliantly into philosophy, but he’s pretty sure David Jones mentioned something about that during his philosophy club, so maybe he’d be the man to talk to about questioning everything you know.

“Yeah, and have a fucking breakdown all over again,” Owen snorts thickly, wiping at his eyes as he forces his mind back to the conversation. “Great idea.”

“_Maybe it’ll be easier?_” Hask offers, though he sounds no more certain of that than Owen feels about anything right now. “_You want me to keep this quiet, by the way?_”

“If you could, yeah,” Owen blows out a slow breath. “What kind of fucking idiot doesn’t realise…?”

“_Don’t beat yourself up over this,_” Hask warns quietly. “_It won’t help with anything._”

That’s probably true. It’s definitely true, in fact. Two seconds to dwell on the mistake, then it’s over, done. Owen’s definitely had more than two seconds for this one.

“Thanks,” Owen whispers. “I’ll see you around, mate.”

“_Take care,_” Hask tells him, and he manages a noise of affirmation before the older man continues. “_Seriously, you don’t owe anyone anything to do with this._”

“Thanks,” Owen repeats. “You take care as well, yeah?”

“_I always do_,” Hask assures, and Owen hesitates a second more before hanging up and dropping his hand to dangle between his drawn-up knees as his head falls back to rest against the door.

At some point, his parents will be back with Tommy and Gabe, and maybe it’s too cold to stay out here until then, but he’s not sure that he’s ready to move.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Er... It's been a little while...? In my defence, I've been kinda busy, and I've barely gotten anything done, never mind writing... But I do have an offer from Oxford, as of yesterday! So, um, yay! Admittedly, I have absolutely crashed emotions-wise today, partially as a result of yesterday's high, but... y'know...
> 
> Oh, and I have a piercing! I'm also racing on Saturday and haven't trained so far this week or last, so that's going to be *interesting*... never mind that it could end up being the first time I swim with the aforementioned piercing... Hmm...
> 
> At any rate, hope you enjoy - this one's a short one, because I'm saving some things.

It takes at least half an hour for Owen’s parents to get back, and his mum falters on seeing him, a deep frown of concern falling over his dad’s face as Gabe peers at him with wide, curious eyes.

“Owen…?” his dad starts cautiously, and he manages a weak smile as he pushes himself up to stand, unsure if he feels calm at the moment or just numb.

And cold. Definitely cold.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have sat outside in Ireland in December for so long.

“We need to talk,” he tells them hoarsely as he reaches down to take Tommy from the pram and settle his son into his arms; he needs the grounding influence that only Tommy can provide right now, if only for a moment.

“Did something…?” his mum hedges, and when he nods, her face falls. “Oh, Owen…”

“Let’s just get inside,” he tells her gruffly, suddenly certain that he doesn’t want them jumping to conclusions. “I’ll tell you somewhere warmer.”

While his mum sends Gabe off to watch TV – Owen hopes that Georgie isn’t still sitting in the living room looking like a wreck, though he wouldn’t blame her if she were, given that he did exactly that on the step outside – Owen carries Tommy upstairs so that his son can sleep in peace, then leads his dad through to the kitchen to wait. After a minute of awkward silence, his dad seeming to understand that he doesn’t want to talk about it yet but neither of them able to find anything else to discuss – rugby just doesn’t seem appropriate, and neither does anything else – his mum appears, shutting the door gently behind herself, and Owen takes a deep breath, having already decided to launch in and just tell them everything.

“So, me and Georgie are –” his voice wavers for a second, “– over, but that’s not what I – what I really need to talk to you about.”

His parents share a look that he doesn’t think he even wants to decipher.

“She said some things, and kind of… She made me realise something. Something about myself, which is probably why we weren’t really working out, and she’s known it about me for a while, but I never… I didn’t realise. I – Um, I –”

He doesn’t know if he can say it.

“Take your time, love,” his mum tells him gently, and his dad nods in silent agreement. “Whatever it is…”

“I’m gay,” he spits out, relieved when, unlike when he’d been talking to Hask, he doesn’t break down immediately. “I wasn’t even attracted to her. I just – I told myself I was, and I never even… I’ve been… I don’t know, somehow ignoring it all for years, but she said all those things, and I can’t – I can’t deny any of it. She’s not even the only person who realised…”

“Okay,” his mum nods, slow but apparently calm, and Owen can only squint at her for a moment.

“_Okay_?” he repeats when he’s found his voice. “That’s all you have to say about that?”

“Well, we already knew you liked men, so I suppose –”

“_What_?”

Owen’s voice cracks on the single syllable, and he’s barely aware of shaking his head as he backs away, their forms blurring before him to mask his dad’s concern and his mum’s alarm.

“You _knew_?” he manages to choke out, and just about catches the look they share.

“Mate, you were hardly subtle,” his dad huffs awkwardly, seemingly a little amused, and Owen only stops retreating when he hits the counter. “We were just waiting for you to be ready to tell us – but then we supposed it was just… open knowledge.”

Speechless, Owen struggles for anything to anchor him through this and comes up with nothing. Did _everyone_ around him know? Has everyone just been waiting for him to come out to them as something entirely _other_ to his previously stable perspective of himself?

“N – No,” he stammers, shaking his head again. “That’s not… This isn’t… You _can’t_ have known.”

“Come on, we’re hardly oblivious. You didn’t exactly try to hide it –”

“I didn’t know there was anything _to_ hide!” Owen snaps back. “I – _I _didn’t know, but apparently – apparently, I was the only one!”

He’s almost starting to get angry, now, even as the tears slip out, and desperately, he swipes them away. This isn’t happening. They didn’t know, not someone else; he needs someone he loves not to have known, because he _can’t_ have been the only one who didn’t…

“What do you mean, you didn’t know?” his dad frowns.

“I thought I was straight!” Owen bursts out, chest heaving for air to replace everything he seems to have lost with that one sentence. “Until – Until, what, an hour ago? And now – now everyone else seems to have known the whole time, and I didn’t – I didn’t – I thought I was _straight_…”

He’s barely aware of falling into his dad’s embrace, pitching away from the counter into the warm chest of his father as those strong, familiar arms close around him and a comforting palm smooths up and down his back.

“It’s alright, mate,” his dad whispers, kissing the top of his head. “We thought you knew, but it’s alright. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

Desperately, he clings to the man who’s been his rock throughout his entire life, body shaking with sobs as he tries to ignore how much he feels like a kid again, seeking comfort from his dad after he fell over and scraped his knee particularly badly. This is a different kind of pain, but his dad’s arms chase it away almost as easily.

“Georgie told you, you said?” his dad murmurs. “She knew you were outright gay?”

It takes Owen a moment to nod, but when he does manage it, his dad sighs quietly.

“And she stayed?”

“She said – She said she hoped I wasn’t completely gay, and if – if she loved me long enough –” Owen can’t finish that sentence. “When she realised I _was_ gay, she was just – just waiting for me to – to tell her.”

“But you didn’t know,” his dad fills in, quiet and solemn as his mum hovers somewhere nearby. “Oh, mate…”

“I do love her,” he feels the need to tell them. “I just – I assumed it was…”

“It’s okay,” his dad soothes gently, still rubbing his back. “It’s alright, mate.”

Owen isn’t sure it is, but he’s willing to take his dad’s word for it at the moment. That’s probably more reliable than his own thoughts, really.

He doesn’t know what to think about anything anymore.

Pressing his face into his dad’s chest, he decides to block everything else out for the time being. His parents are a constant he can trust, his dad particularly, and his sexuality doesn’t matter with them. They’re just his parents, and they love him no matter what, just as he loves them. That’s all that matters, so he has nothing to worry about.

To his relief, his dad doesn’t protest the tears soaking into clean fabric, just waiting with a quiet patience that Owen has never been more grateful for until finally, Owen is ready to pull away and draw in a deep breath.

“Do you know what’s going to happen between you and Georgie?” his mum asks carefully when she’s seen that he has calmed down.

“I think…”

Nervous, Owen glances around, unwilling to somehow jinx the situation and bring something worse crashing down on their heads.

“I think we’re going to keep raising Tommy together?” he manages uncertainly. “As friends? I don’t know. We should probably… talk about that properly at some point.”

“And…” his mum hesitates. “If… one of you meets someone…?”

Helpless, Owen can only shrug.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “We’ll talk about that, or we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, I guess.”

Weakly, his mum offers a smile, reaching out to brush his cheek, and he lets her in silence, taking comfort in the simple contact before turning to the sink to rinse his face and remove the evidence of his crying. It’s one thing letting them comfort him when he needs it, but he needs to convince himself that he’s strong – strong enough to handle this, even if that means doing so with their help.

“We’re here for you, mate,” his dad tells him softly as he dries his cheeks once more. “Whatever you need, alright?”

Forcing a shaky smile of his own, Owen nods in acknowledgement. Honestly, he doesn’t know what he’d do without them.

A full hour later, he finally finds himself sat down with Georgie, neither of them able to meet the other’s eyes as Owen struggles for something to say, fairly sure that his wife is doing the same.

“Are we going to get a divorce?” he asks finally, unable to think of anything to ease his way into the conversation, and she shrugs.

“I don’t think we need to,” she sighs. “Not until we have to, I guess – if one of us meets someone else. Or maybe we should get it over and done with.”

“But we’ll keep living together, at any rate?” Owen checks, and she nods. “And raise Tommy as friends.”

“Yeah,” she confirms quietly, biting her lip. “I do love you, Owen. Just not…”

“That way,” Owen fills in, looking away to avoid the pain in her gaze, and huffs a weak laugh that sounds too uncertain for his own liking. “I could say the same to you.”

Slowly, she nods.

“You told your parents?” she asks; it’s his turn to nod. “Do you… Would you mind if I explained this to my family?”

“Go ahead,” he agrees. “…I should tell my sisters at some point – when they get back from wherever they went, I guess.”

“Shopping,” Georgie fills in, faintly amused, and Owen shrugs.

“That,” he confirms, unable to resist the urge to roll his eyes. “I swear, they spend a handful of days together…”

“No different to you and your dad,” she points out calmly, Owen unable to find any more of a response than a quiet huff of mock-protest. “Are you going to tell your teammates?”

Shrugging, Owen turns his head away altogether to consider the question. _Will_ he tell his teammates?

“Maybe,” he replies, dropping his gaze to watch his fingers where they fiddle with a stray pen on the table. “Probably. I’ll have to at some point, but… probably before then, I guess.”

“Maybe you could talk to Alex Lozowski as well?” she suggests quietly, almost cautious in the way she eyes him; after a brief hesitation, he manages a nod.

Probably, talking to Loz will help a lot, because if nothing else, he can get some advice on how to handle this new knowledge – and what to do about it in the long run.

Blowing out a breath, he drops his head into his hands and tries to ignore the sympathetic stare Georgie has fixed him with. She should be looking after herself, because Owen certainly isn’t the only one going through a marriage break-up right now; he tries to ignore the voice in his head whispering that the reason she isn’t so hurt by this is because she’s known it would end this way for a long time and has probably been preparing herself for it for months at least. Maybe, her spending so much time with her sisters – well, Emma – has been her way of distancing herself so that it wouldn’t hurt so much.

Reaching over the table, she squeezes his hand lightly then stands to slip from the room, leaving Owen to the silence and his own thoughts, as alone as he already feels. He seems very much like the only one who’s been blind-sided by all of this, and he thinks that might be the worst of it – that it was apparently so obvious that everyone else knew, but he _didn’t_. He doesn’t like knowing that he missed something so… _fundamental _about himself, when he prides himself so much on understanding himself.

It’s left him questioning a lot that he’s not really sure it’s healthy to question, to be entirely honest with himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Question: do I stick with Owen being gay, or do I take the opportunity to explore some less well-known sexual and romantic orientations? I'm kind of bouncing between the two at the moment, and I'm halfway through writing a conversation, the end of which I really don't know yet. Any opinions, I'd love to hear them!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And another update! Amazing what can happen when you get one thing done that you've guilt-tripped yourself into needing to have done first before you can do anything else...

The rest of Christmas passes with an uncomfortable tension, Owen all too aware of the divide between those in the know and his siblings; he wasn’t able to bring himself to tell his sisters, and the idea of telling Gabe was never in consideration. All his mum seems to want to talk about whenever he’s around is whatever’s happening in the world that relates to the LGBT community, and while he appreciates that she’s trying to make him feel more comfortable and give his oblivious sisters a chance to inadvertently demonstrate that they’d be supportive, it doesn’t really help with anything. It just leaves him spiralling back into his miserable cycle of self-doubt until he forces himself to leave the room for his own good, back prickling with stares from his wife and parents.

On Boxing Day, after a particularly weighty conversation about sexuality, he finally caves and calls Loz. As he waits for his clubmate to pick up, he pushes down the guilt of interrupting Alex’s holiday and tries to work out what he’s going to say, the beginnings of panic only disrupted by Alex’s confused greeting.

“Happy Christmas, mate, but why are you calling…?”

“I…” Owen hesitates, lifting his thumb to chew at it nervously. “I need some advice on something. I just… I need you not to tell any of the lads about this.”

For a moment, Alex doesn’t reply; Owen can practically hear him weighing up whether to take Owen seriously or go down the route of banter and teasing.

“Alright,” the younger man agrees, to his relief. “What’s up?”

“I, um…”

Taking a deep breath, Owen squeezes his eyes tightly shut and braces himself. _Here goes nothing…_

“I think I’m gay.”

The silence that follows his words is almost crushing, Alex apparently speechless, and Owen doesn’t know what that reaction _means_; is Alex shocked? Offended? Struggling to bite back laughter?

“You _what_?” the younger man splutters, which gives nothing more away either, but Owen closes his eyes all the same, trying to summon the energy he’ll need if Alex really does want him to repeat it. “Mate… You know you’re married, right? How pissed _are_ you?”

“Far too sober,” Owen returns dully, squeezing his eyes a little tighter shut as he draws in a deep breath to force his ribs out and release their crushing grip on his lungs. “I don’t know if we’re getting a formal divorce, but we’re over, at any rate, because apparently, I’m gay, and my parents have known I liked men for ages, and I’m, like, the only _fucking_ person in my entire _fucking_ family who thought for one _fucking second _that I might actually be _straight_!”

“_Jesus_…” Alex mutters, blowing out a breath even as Owen sucks in more air to try and regain control of himself, battling down the sudden fury and hurt that has clawed its way up his throat. “Er… Okay. So you’ve broken up with Georgie, everyone else knew you were gay _including_ her…? And now – what? They told you? Legit?”

“Yeah,” Owen mutters, slumping in defeat, because it doesn’t sound any better to hear back than it does in his head or from his own lips. “But I mean… I don’t know for certain – surely I’d have known, right?”

Alex’s lack of immediate agreement isn’t promising.

“I mean…” his teammate hedges. “Denial is a real problem for queer people, mate. A lot of people can just… miss stuff about themselves, and in hindsight, it seems crazy that you never realised… but it happens. More than I think you know.”

“So you think I’m gay?”

If Alex had seemed cautious before, then it holds nothing to the wariness in his tone now.

“I… couldn’t say…” he starts slowly, seeming to choose every word with incredible care. “Faz… Mate, it’s not… I can’t just look at you and say, ‘yeah, you’re gay, or bi, or whatever’. Like, I can talk through it with you if you want, but at the end of the day, you’re the only person who can look at what you’re feeling and make a judgement on that. Knowing you, this probably won’t help, but you know you don’t _need_ a label, right? Certainly not anytime soon. You really don’t want to be rushing into this too much, you know? But it’s also fine to try a label and then realise later on that it doesn’t really fit who you are.”

“So trial and error,” Owen fills in flatly, which earns him a slightly helpless laugh from Alex.

“Yeah?” his teammate offers. “Or, well… Tell you what, why don’t you talk me through what _you_ know – not what Georgie told you, or your parents, or whatever – or at least only things that they’ve told you and you’re sure you agree with. Just get it out there, see what we can work with. It’d still be good to have a starting point.”

For several seconds, Owen can only chew his lip. That sounds undeniably helpful, but Alex isn’t exactly the most tactful of his teammates, nor the best at keeping secrets, and this really isn’t something he wants spread around the club before he’s ready – or even the Premiership.

“You won’t tell anyone?” he checks. “This stays between us?”

“Of course, yeah!” Alex hurries out, sounding almost offended by the suggestion. “I know I’m not always… But I’m not going to out you, mate. That would be shitty as fuck.”

The vehemence of his assurance soothes Owen enough to take a deep breath.

“I’m not attracted to Georgie,” he starts, internally committing to be as honest as he can. “I… I don’t think I ever was. I’ve just kind of… convinced myself that I was. She doesn’t even turn me on.”

If Alex thinks that this is too much information to share, then the younger man doesn’t say it, so Owen continues.

“I think I was attracted to James Haskell for a while,” he admits slowly. “Maybe I still am. Other than that… I just know that I’ve never had much experience with this kind of thing – relationships in general, I mean. I guess… I don’t really know… what it _should_ be like.”

“Huh,” is Alex’s only response for several seconds, when Owen has fallen silent with nothing more to say, horribly aware that he hasn’t come up with much at all. “So… Georgie doesn’t turn you on. At all?”

“At all,” Owen confirms, sighing.

“So how did you…? I mean, your kid…?”

“With difficulty?” Owen offers to deflect some of his discomfort, relieved when Alex snorts. “I’m not sure. Georgie thinks I was imagining – um, that I was imagining…”

“Men?” Alex fills in, the quiet understanding in his usually boisterous tone startling Owen even as it eases the growing tension in his shoulders. “Okay. But clearly _if_ you were, you didn’t realise…?”

“I’m pretty certain I’ve never thought about having sex with anyone else while I was with her,” Owen tells him firmly. “I mean… Maybe I’ve thought _about_ other people, but not… Not like that. Like, I don’t know… Maybe I _do_ – did – think about other people when I’m with her, but not in a sort of… Not about having sex with them.”

The quiet on the other end of the line is unsettling, but Owen doesn’t have anything else to say to bridge the gap, so he settles for shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Is that worse? That he’s not attracted to Georgie, but he doesn’t even need to think about having sex with Hask to get it up? Does that make him even _more_ gay? Not that being gay is a bad thing, except it kind of is for him, because of the context – and if he _is_ gay, is he allowed to think of it as a bad thing, now? In terms of his own situation?

Obviously, he’s never looked down on Alex or thought differently of him for it, but is he allowed to be upset about this? Or is that somehow homophobic? He’s not sure he could handle having to be happy about this.

“Have you _ever_ fantasised about having sex with someone?” Alex asks out of the blue, startling him from his thoughts, and he opens his mouth automatically to say that _of course he has_, but remembers that he really isn’t in the position to be answering any questions without more thinking time and stops himself to ensure that he has a specific example.

He can’t find one.

“Um,” he manages, and has to stop again, because surely…?

He was supposedly attracted to Hask, right? So maybe…?

“I don’t…”

Come to think of it, the idea of actually having _sex_ with Hask isn’t all that appealing.

“Is that a no?” Alex checks. “Because I might have a suggestion that could help if so.”

Slowly, Owen blows out a breath and braces himself for yet another mind-blowing admission.

“I don’t think I have,” he mutters. “Even Hask – I _swear_, thinking about him can turn me on, but I… Having sex with him – I wouldn’t – I don’t –”

“Don’t work yourself up,” Alex cuts in, calm as ever. “It’s fine, mate. So what _is_ attractive about him?”

“He’s nice,” Owen starts at once, because beyond the media persona, beyond the bravado and everything else that comes with the man, Hask is one of the nicest blokes he’s ever met. “He’s kind, supportive… And he does – he does look good.”

He has time for Owen, even at the last minute, and he knows how to make Owen feel better… His laughter is practically infectious…

“So here’s a thing,” Alex begins, a strange note of surety in his tone. “Have you ever heard of asexuality?”

_What?_

“Like _plants_…?”

“Well… Kind of,” Alex allows, sighing. “There’s asexual reproduction, but asexuality is also a sexual orientation – or some people describe it as a lack of a sexual orientation, or whatever. It depends how you view it. It’s like… When you don’t actually experience sexual attraction to people. Or… Well, it’s a bit of a spectrum, like everything, you know? So you might experience sexual attraction in some situations, or… Anyway. So it could be that you’re interested in men in, maybe… a romantic sense, or something like that, but you don’t actually experience a sexual attraction to them. Maybe getting turned on by Hask is just your body responding to, like, the general positive feelings you have for him or something?”

“But I do have sex,” Owen points out, confused. “And it feels good.”

“Yeah,” Alex agrees easily. “But being asexual doesn’t always mean you can’t want to have sex, or you don’t enjoy it. It’s not like you don’t have a sex drive. It just means you’re not attracted to people in that way. So maybe… If you ended up with a boyfriend… You might have sex with him for the intimacy, or the physical pleasure, or something else, like maybe if he’s not asexual – but even if he wasn’t, that’s not an automatic reason to have sex if you don’t feel like it…”

“Wait,” Owen cuts in, lifting a hand to nurse his forehead in an attempt to _think_, and Alex falls blessedly silent. “So… Being asexual means you don’t experience sexual attraction to people, but you can still have a sort of… a preference or something?”

“It’s like… You thought you were straight, right? So imagine if you actually _were_ straight, but you just didn’t experience sexual attraction. That wouldn’t automatically mean you’d date anyone, would it? And it’s the same with being attracted to men, just not sexually. Or anyone. Multiple groups of people. Whatever.”

“And you think that’s… me?” Owen checks uncertainly.

He’s not really sure what to think of the idea. It just all sounds a bit… strange, but that’s probably because he never knew it existed before.

He’s not sure what to make of the small part of him that’s comforted by knowing that it’s an option.

“I don’t know,” Alex corrects. “It’s a suggestion. I’d say… Think about it. If you’re not sure, try it out, or don’t – whatever you want. If it fits, it fits. If it doesn’t… Just remember that you don’t _need_ a label, and even if you want one, you don’t have to rush to find the first that even vaguely applies, yeah? And if you’ve got any more questions, you want to talk about this, you need advice dealing with people or coming out or maybe even meeting other people who might know more… You know where to find me.”

Blankly, Owen nods, then remembers that Alex can’t see him and clears his throat to offer a quiet affirmation.

“Thanks a lot,” he adds a moment later. “Sorry for disturbing your…”

“No problem, mate,” Alex assures him. “You take care, yeah? I’ll see you soon.”

A good hour after hanging up, having stayed well away from anyone else to give himself some time to think, the same thoughts are still cycling around Owen’s head. He just seems to be going in circles, always needing to know one thing to work out another, and yet needing that to even begin to tackle the first, unable to decipher if he really does experience sexual attraction – or how he could possibly identify it if he does. Surely the only way to know is to know what sexual attraction feels like, but for that, he needs to have experienced it himself, and if he _has_, how would he know it was that? And if he _is_ asexual, why can’t he still be with Georgie?

Because he isn’t in love with her, right.

But how can he know if he has romantic feelings for anyone if he doesn’t have sexual attraction to them? How does he even begin to separate romantic feelings from platonic? How does he now tell the difference between liking someone as a friend and being interested in pursuing a relationship with them?

This whole asexual thing seems to have raised more questions than it ever began to answer.

Eventually, he goes to talk to Georgie.

“So…” he starts, drawing in a deep breath as she looks up from Tommy to offer him a weary smile. “I spoke to Loz.”

Her eyebrows rise slowly.

“Did it help?” she asks, audibly cautious, and for a second, Owen can only shrug.

“He doesn’t think I’m gay,” he explains, and regrets starting with that when her face falls with despair. “He doesn’t think I’m straight. He thinks I could be asexual. But only… only romantically attracted to men? Or… I don’t know. He said it was just a suggestion, and I should think about it, but I don’t – I don’t know how to… How do I _know_ something like that?”

“Ace?” Georgie blinks. “Huh.”

_You what?_

“Ace?” Owen echoes uncertainly. “What’s that mean?”

And does he even want to know?

“It’s short for asexual,” Georgie supplies, which is a much nicer answer than Owen had feared. “As for how you know… Well, either you’re sexually attracted to people or you aren’t, right?”

_And best advice of the year goes to…_

“But how do I know if I am?” he clarifies. “If I _have_ felt it, then… Well, I’ve felt it, but… If I _haven’t_, how do I know what it feels like to know that I haven’t? And if I have, how do I know it was that? And if I’m not sexually attracted to people, what’s the difference between being in a relationship with someone and being best friends? How do I _know_?”

Slowly, she drops her gaze to Tommy, and Owen follows the movement, watching his son abandon one toy and crawl to a different one to knock it over and giggle quietly. The sound brings a smile to his own face, his worries forgotten for a moment before the rush of Georgie’s sigh brings him back to the conversation at hand.

“I don’t know,” she admits. “I’m sorry, Owen. I mean, I don’t know that much about asexuality. It never even _occurred _to me…”

She trails off, shaking her head, and gasps loudly when Tommy turns to hand her a building block.

“Thank you,” she coos, beaming as he does the same then laughing as he turns to point at Owen. “Are you going to say hi to Dada?”

“Dada!” Tommy babbles happily, reaching out to Owen before starting an unsteady crawl in the same direction, and Owen has no qualms about crossing the room to meet the boy partway there and scoop him up.

“Hey, Tommy,” he grins, and Tommy gurgles at him, reaching up to touch his face. “Yeah, hello, mate…”

As he converses with his son, he’s faintly aware of Georgie watching them with a quiet smile, but lets Tommy occupy his focus, eventually devolving into making noises for Tommy to copy with obvious pleasure. Conversations about his sexuality can wait when it comes to Tommy.

“So… ace?” Georgie starts once Tommy is settled for his afternoon nap, and Owen nods with a sigh. “I don’t really… have much advice I can offer you, other than to be patient.”

“That’s kind of what Loz said,” Owen admits quietly.

“You thought of listening to him?” she returns immediately, a teasing note entering her tone as she offers him a small smile. “If you want to talk through it or anything, I’m all ears. I just don’t think I can provide any extra clarity myself.”

Slowly, Owen nods. It’s not really fair, he acknowledges, to expect her to have answers that he can’t provide for himself.

“I guess I should probably spend some more time trying to get my head straight on it first,” he replies, biting his lip as he considers her suggestion. “Thanks, though. For everything. For not being…”

“What else would I do?” she returns. “Blame you for things that are entirely out of your control? It’s not like it’s your fault – or anyone’s fault. In a way… I knew what I was getting into far more than you did.”

Owen’s not sure that’s entirely what he meant, though he won’t deny that he’s thought of that too.

“But…” he trails off, struggling for an explanation. “This has got to be hard on you as well, and you’re still… You’re helping me, and I just… You don’t have to do that. But you do.”

“I still love you,” she tells him quietly. “Just not… like _that._”

After a brief hesitation, Owen nods his grateful acknowledgement.

“If you ever need anything, though…” he hedges carefully, and she echoes his previous nod with a small, cautious smile.

“I’ll let you know,” she promises.

When her hand brushes his, he almost jumps in surprise, but her fingers merely lace with his to squeeze gently before she detangles them and steps away.

“I think your sisters are starting to question things, by the way,” she adds, and then she’s gone, disappearing down the stairs to leave Owen hovering outside their still-shared guestroom, Tommy asleep on the other side of the door with, as yet, absolutely no idea that his parents aren’t together.

Or maybe, he never had any concept of them being in love in the first place, and he’ll grow up never seeing whatever arrangement they settle on as unusual until he realises that it isn’t just his grandparents, aunts and uncles who are different. Maybe that will be hard for him, or maybe it won’t, but whatever the case, Owen plans to do whatever he can to make it all as easy for his son as possible. No matter what comes of all of this, he fully intends to be there for Tommy – and for Georgie, too, if she needs him, even if it’s only as a friend.

If absolutely nothing else, he’s fairly sure he owes her that and more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reciprocity and interactional synchrony. Key for secure attachment, according to research. If I misrepresent anything here, please do let me know, because this isn't my area of expertise in terms of personal experience - apart from in the sense of questioning my sexuality on multiple fronts and never _really_ being entirely sure of an answer...


	4. Chapter 4

The gaze that settles on Owen’s finger, where a conspicuous band of lighter skin circles the base, is uncomfortable, prickling over the back of his hand as he fights the urge to pull it out of sight altogether. Without his ring, he feels oddly naked, a little off-balance and uncertain, often reaching to rub it or twist it around his finger only to come into contact with skin and slightly dented flesh instead. Now, with Jamie’s stare a constant reminder of its absence, it feels even worse than normal.

“You lose your ring, mate?” Jamie asks finally, and as Owen draws in a deep breath, he’s all too aware of Loz glancing over at them, food abandoned for the time being to listen in.

“No,” he admits slowly. “I, um…”

His eyes sting out of the blue, and he squeezes them tightly shut, coughing to clear the lump which has risen in his throat as Jamie inhales sharply.

“Shit…” his friend breathes. “You and Georgie…?”

Stiffly, Owen nods, pretending not to notice the second shocked curse that Jamie mutters under his breath in favour of searching for something to brush over this topic and move the conversation elsewhere.

“Mate, I’m so sorry,” Jamie continues before he can, quiet and solemn but still too loud for Owen’s liking. “Jesus – over Christmas?”

“We’ve been… fighting a lot, lately,” Owen finds himself admitting as he fixes his burning eyes on his plate, unable to face the pity boring into the side of his skull. “Things just… came to a – a head, and…”

Trailing off, he shrugs and pulls a face to disguise the way that his lips are twisting involuntarily downward, trembling as they do so.

“You never said…” Jamie’s words tail off into silence as the hooker shakes his head, apparently unable to find the words for whatever he wants to say – if he even knows what he wants to say in the first place.

Uncomfortable, Owen nods his acknowledgement.

“I thought it would die down,” he confesses slowly. “It didn’t, obviously – and then some things just… came out about it all, and there wasn’t really – there wasn’t any going back from that.”

Honestly, he doesn’t want to talk about this, because it’s just making him feel shit, and it certainly isn’t fun for Jamie, but he doesn’t think he can stop now, especially when Jamie prompts him softly with:

“What kind of things?”

“Things about me,” he can only croak, sinking lower and lower into the pit of negative feelings that he’s dug for himself with each passing second. “_I_ can’t deny it, _she_’s known for years, but I – I never realised – I didn’t know –”

If Jamie asks anything else, Owen knows, then it will all come spilling out, and he doesn’t think he’s ready for that, but he wouldn’t be able to stop himself.

“My _parents_ knew,” he adds miserably. “My sisters were surprised, at least.”

Very surprised, in fact. He sat them down and told them the truth less than an hour before he was set to leave for the airport, and he still can’t shake their wide eyes from his mind, Gracie’s disbelieving splutter ringing in his ears whenever he lets himself dwell on it too long.

“I just – I didn’t even –”

“Faz, let’s take a walk,” Loz interrupts, smooth and calm as his hand settles on Owen’s shoulder to pull him away from the table, and Owen’s all too happy to push back his chair and stand, staggering away from his teammates’ worried stares to follow Alex from the room.

If not for Alex’s intervention, he’s certain he would have said it all – everything that he’s not sure enough about to tell anyone more than is already aware – and the gratitude that floods him sticks in his throat as Alex nudges him lightly through the clubhouse to the toilets.

“As I said, denial’s a big thing in the queer community,” the younger man tells him gently when the door is closed behind them and it’s clear they’re alone, even as it comes to Owen’s attention that his hands are shaking. “And even if it wasn’t, the sheer lack of _education_… Mate, everyone grows up thinking that being straight is the default; you can’t blame yourself.”

That’s an interesting way of looking at it, and maybe it even helps a bit, though Owen would still have liked to think that he’s aware enough of himself to see that he doesn’t fit that mould created by society; shrugging, he turns away from Alex’s empathetically concerned gaze to blow out a breath.

“I don’t know,” he mutters, hunching his shoulders as if that could shield him from his problems a little more. “I just… I don’t know.”

“I know,” Alex nods. “But that’s okay, mate. I know it’s not how you normally run, but with this sort of thing… Trust me, it’s really okay not to know for a bit.”

Owen doesn’t have an answer to that, and he certainly doesn’t have time to formulate one before the door edges carefully open and Jamie peers around it before slipping the rest of the way into the room.

“Hey,” he offers softly, Owen unable to offer anything more than a nod and a weak attempt at a smile that falls flat. “Is everything…? Are you…?”

“I’ll tell you about it at some point,” Owen promises, the best he can offer Jamie right now, “When I know more about what’s going on myself.”

“Alright,” Jamie agrees quietly, eyes flicking over Alex with obvious uncertainty before he nods and offers a tight smile. “Just… If I can do anything…”

“I’ll let you know,” Owen fills in, though he can’t escape the sense that there’s a wall between them, new and sudden and invisible but utterly unbreachable until he can work out where it came from in the first place; Jamie nods, short and sharp, then turns to leave.

The door bangs shut, the sound ringing through the otherwise silent room, and try as he might, Owen can’t avoid the thought that Jamie is upset with him.

Really, it’s the last thing he needs right now.

“Dada!” Tommy beams as soon as he enters the living room on arriving home, squirming in Georgie’s hold to reach for him, and it’s easy to return the smile as he lifts his son from Georgie’s hold and catches sight of her fond eye-roll.

“Hey, Bud,” he returns, bouncing the wriggling boy gently in his arms then dropping his lips to the top of Tommy’s head for a quick kiss. “You been good for Mum?”

Tommy only laughs, the sound bright and clear as he reaches up towards Owen’s face, then his hands drop to fiddle with one of the strings of Owen’s hoodie. Owen doesn’t have the heart to pull it from his son’s mouth, even with how quickly it’s darkening, undoubtedly soaked all the way through within seconds.

“How was training?” Georgie asks quietly as he sits, and Owen can only shrug for several seconds as the memory of Jamie’s sullen features returns to the forefront of his mind.

“It had its ups and downs,” he settles for. “Training itself was good, I mean – talking about marriage breakdown…”

He huffs a laugh to hide his wince when he realises what he’s just said and to whom. Georgie, however, sees right through him, smile falling into something softer and very much sympathetic.

“What did you tell them?” she presses after a moment of silence, Owen clearing his throat to rid it of the lump that has lodged itself there before replying.

“I said we’d been arguing for a while, and… Yeah.”

“Nothing about…?” Georgie trails off instead of finishing the question.

“I…” Owen hesitates, unwilling to admit exactly how worked up he got. “Almost, but no.”

In his arms, Tommy squirms and reaches for his toys, clearly bored of Owen’s hoodie as he pushes at Owen’s chest with small hands.

“Down you go, then…” Owen sighs, leaning down to set the boy carefully onto the carpet and watching Tommy crawl his way over to the large blocks scattered over the floor a few feet away. “No, I didn’t tell them. I did get a bit of time to talk to Loz, though.”

Over the day, he’s had time to think on Alex’s words, rolling them over and over in his head – and then, before starting his post-training kicking, he managed to squeeze a few minutes more to talk to the younger man. ‘Heteronormativity’ is an interesting concept, and certainly one that he plans to look more into in the coming days. The idea that he would have grown up assuming that he was straight right from the start, that it wasn’t entirely down to some kind of misinterpretation or his own mistake, is a new idea, but it rings true, and it’s nice to have that familiar fire burning once more with the prospect of learning and progressing. He’s had his time to wallow in self-pity and berate himself, and now, it’s time to move on from that and look to what he can control: his own understanding of where he is now (and perhaps even what he can do to prevent Tommy from going through the same automatic socialisation that Alex explained to him). It’s time to accept what has happened and focus instead on the present and future.

As Georgie listens, he explains his thoughts in lowered tones, watching Tommy all the while but catching her occasional nods out of the corner of his eye. She seems… pleased, really, to hear his words, which he thinks is important to him as well; he might not be in love with her, but he does _love_ her, and her well-being and happiness are high on his list of priorities.

“That sounds…” she trails off without finishing the sentence, cocking her head to the side. “It makes sense, really, doesn’t it? I’ve never really thought about it like that before.”

“I guess that’s part of it, isn’t it?” Owen sighs, smiling at Tommy when his son twists briefly around to stare at him before turning back to the blocks on the floor. “You just… You don’t realise it’s happening; it just _is_.”

“Constantly perpetuated,” Georgie hums, then nods thoughtfully. “Are you… You sound like you’re feeling… _better_, about everything. Is that…?”

“Yeah,” Owen concedes, slow and careful. “Yeah, I think I am. I’m a little bit unsure about things, I guess – but as Loz keeps saying…”

“That’s fine,” Georgie fills in, a note of laughter in her tone as Owen grins. “Who’d have thought Alex Lozowski would have decent advice to give?”

Owen has to snort at that, unable to find any real argument to defend his teammate; he loves Loz like a brother, the same as the rest of the lads, but he’s hardly a regular confidant in the group, and certainly not the first person Owen would think to turn to for most problems.

“I’ll warn him he’s getting too sensible,” Owen jokes, Georgie giggling quietly, then their attention is pulled back to their son as Tommy starts to crawl back towards them, bottom lip wobbling with a clear sign of tears soon to come. “What’s the matter, hey, Tommy?”

Tommy, a clear master of communication, sits down heavily on his bottom and starts to cry.

“You aware you’ve ruffled Jinxie’s feathers?” Elliot asks two days later, as though Owen could _possibly_ have missed his longest standing friend’s stiff attitude towards him lately.

“Yeah,” he sighs, shaking his head in frustration as he takes Elliot’s pass and fires the ball back towards the younger man. “He’s seemed a bit off since… Well, since we got back, I guess – but I can’t work out…”

Shrugging, he catches and returns again, then when Elliot lobs it back, he follows its momentum to turn and send it out the back, pleased when it loops down nicely to where Elliot is standing then starting up a light jog in the direction he’s now facing, Elliot taking the hint and copying.

“I reckon he’s miffed that Loz knows more about your whole, uh…” Elliot coughs awkwardly, the ball sailing over once more, “Divorce thing. Doesn’t feel like you’re trusting him enough or something – I don’t know. You’d think he’d be satisfied with knowing you longer than anyone else here…”

“Just can’t get enough,” Owen grins, even as he considers how Jamie might have interpreted Owen’s willingness to talk to Loz over anyone else; without any idea of _what_ they’ve been talking about, perhaps it does seem a little like Owen isn’t comfortable turning to Jamie, and he supposes that he could imagine being somewhat offended if it were the other way around. “I’d better talk to him, then – thanks, mate.”

In the end, he intercepts Jamie on the way to the carpark, falling into step beside his friend and ignoring the fact that they’ve already passed his own car in favour of clearing his throat softly and summoning the words he came up with earlier.

“If you don’t mind, I want to explain why it’s Loz I’ve been talking to about everything between me and Georgie.”

Jamie’s shoulders stiffen, his jaw clenched tightly as he stares right ahead, and when he speaks, his voice is more than a little stilted.

“You don’t have to – it’s your choice.”

Biting his lip, Owen exhales through his nose.

“I do have to,” he counters. “Your reaction makes _that_ quite clear.”

Abruptly, Jamie stops, folding his arms and turning to meet Owen’s eyes.

“Alright, so I’m not sure why you seem so reluctant to talk to me about it, but that’s your choice,” he dismisses. “If there’s something I’ve done, then fine.”

“There isn’t,” Owen returns, shoving his hands into his pockets as he matches Jamie’s hard stare. “Are you going to let me explain, or continue this mini tantrum?”

Jamie’s nostrils flare briefly, but Owen gets the short nod he’s been looking for all the same.

“The reason I went to Loz,” he starts slowly, “Is because Loz is the best person to give me advice about _why_ me and Georgie weren’t working. The, um – The thing is…”

He sucks in a deep breath, lifting his chin, and steels himself.

“Georgie had to – She had to help me realise that…”

Losing his nerve again, he glances around the carpark to make sure that no one else is close enough to hear them; there’s no one in sight.

“I’m not straight,” he blurts out, cheeks flaming at once as Jamie blinks at him, apparently non-plussed. “I – I didn’t even realise, but… My parents knew I liked men, so did Georgie, and they just thought I knew… But I never even realised that, never mind that I don’t like women, and it’s all up in the air at the moment, so I thought I’d ask Loz for some help to deal with that, but then he came out with this idea that maybe I’m not even _gay_ –”

“Hang on,” Jamie interrupts, holding up a hand as he squints at Owen. “When you say you’re not straight… as in, heterosexual? You’re not…”

Forcing a weak smile – little more than a press of his lips in reality – Owen nods.

“Apparently, my parents knew I liked men for ages, but they assumed I liked women as well, and Georgie was the same at first, but then she realised that I didn’t like women, and I just… I don’t know, I somehow convinced myself I was straight, but I’m not even _close_, and Loz thinks I’m not even sexually attracted to _anyone_, just –”

“Slow it _down_, Faz,” Jamie breathes, shaking his head. “You thought you were straight, but you’re not? So how did you realise you aren’t…?”

“Georgie told me,” Owen admits hesitantly, gritting his teeth as a shiver ripples through him; the cold is starting to get to him. “Mid-argument. I didn’t believe her at first, and she thought I was just trying to deny it, until she realised I genuinely had no idea. And then… yeah. We were pretty much over either way, but obviously, that was…”

“_Jesus_…”

“You don’t say,” Owen has to huff, even as his teeth chatter lightly. “A – At a – any rate, she thought I w – was gay, but when I spoke to Loz about it f – for the first time, he suggested that I m – might be asexual –”

“You _w – what_, now?”

Biting back an involuntary grin, Owen nods and pretends that his teeth aren’t clashing almost painfully.

“That’s what I thought,” he agrees. “W – Where I’m not a – actually s – sexually attracted to anyone. And I guess it kind of… m – makes sense. I mean, sex is good and all, but I’ve never been interested in someone because I like the idea of having sex with them. So Loz thinks I’m s – sort of… gay but asexual, I guess? Like, dating a g – guy but not n – necessarily having sex with him.”

Jamie’s mouth opens, then closes slowly, face flushed as he trembles visibly with the cold.

“Tell you what,” he starts after a moment of silence. “I’m going to g – go and drop m – my kit off at home, then I’ll head round to y – yours so we can continue this conversation i – inside, and away from this c – cold and any listening ears.”

That sounds like a brilliant idea, Owen has to admit, so he nods shakily and turns for his car, only realising once he’s in the safety of the vehicle with his heating on close to full that technically, he’s just come out to someone else. It was… less catastrophic than he thinks he’d have built it up in his head to be, had he been focused solely on that.

Still, he should get home to get warmed up properly and prepare for Jamie’s arrival, so he brushes such thoughts to the side for the time being in favour of flexing his fingers to warm them up and turning the key in the ignition. _Home it is._


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feels like it's been a while and I guess it kind of has...? If COVID-19 doesn't call the rest of the season off, I should actually get to play some matches in the next month or so; I've just started my final set of mocks pre-A-levels, which start in under two months now; I got Tinder... and then OKCupid... and then Grindr... and yeah...
> 
> Anyway, hope you've all been well! This is fairly sure compared to the others, I think - about half the length?

Jamie’s beam on spotting Tommy in Owen’s arms is wide and delighted, and Owen has no problem with letting his friend take his son as he closes the door and nudges Jamie through to the kitchen for coffee. He can’t help his own grin on listening to the pair’s ‘conversation’, happy to leave Tommy under Jamie’s capable care as he sets about finding mugs and getting their coffee sorted.

Admittedly, it might have been a deliberate ploy on his part to keep the inevitable conversation from getting _too_ intense, but Jamie doesn’t need to know that, and Tommy is certainly happy to be the centre of attention. All the same, there’s no use in delaying this for too long, because he doesn’t want to give himself time to build up too much tension, so as soon as the coffee is sorted, he sets their mugs down on the table and sits across from Jamie with a sigh, cradling his drink in his hands as he struggles to choose between the many potential conversation-openers which have sprung into his head over the last few minutes.

Luckily, Jamie’s more than able to take on that role for him.

“So…” his best friend starts, leaning over Tommy for a sip of his coffee. “Men, huh?”

“Yeah,” Owen manages an awkward laugh, relieved not to be the one starting this off despite his ensuing embarrassment at the comment. “I… Yeah, apparently. It’s… weird, I guess. I mean, I never even realised, but now, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. I can’t… _deny_ it, you know? Not with any plausibility.”

“Huh.”

Jamie’s nod is slow, considering.

“But…” the older man hedges cautiously, frown deepening with confusion, “Not… _sexually_? How does that work?”

“I mean, I’m not certain about that,” Owen hurries to correct. “I guess it’s more… I don’t know, but this is the best… idea, or something. I’m still trying to – to grasp it, so…”

Trailing off, he shrugs even as some of the awkwardness starts to fade, allowing him to relax in the company of his closest friend; he might not always be a natural when it comes to opening up, but Jamie makes it a lot easier.

“I guess it’s kind of like, I’d date a man, and sure, I wouldn’t mind having sex with him, but I’d never be into him because I like the idea of having sex with him?” he adds, grimacing to show his own uncertainty, though now that he’s said it aloud, he feels a little surer of it.

“But you still enjoy sex?” Jamie squints.

“I mean…” Owen pauses to take a sip of his coffee. “Yeah, it feels good – of course it does. It’s not that I’m not interested in having sex. It’s that… I’d never be into someone for that reason. If we’re right about… where I’m at with my sexuality and all that.”

“Is it really still a sexuality?” Jamie muses, the beginnings of a teasing grin edging at his lips. “If it’s not about the… sexual attraction, is it called?”

“Fuck if I know,” Owen tells him honestly, waving the thought away. “Ask Loz that shit – I’m still learning all this.”

“And you’ll be an expert by the end of January,” Jamie counters, rolling his eyes in exasperated fondness. “The England lads won’t know what hit ‘em.”

Owen allows himself a smile of his own in response to the idea, happy to concede the point given that he’s already spent a fair amount of time researching heteronormativity and repression of identity (and yes, maybe that branched out into various other areas of the LGBT+ community).

“Is that… something that you’re planning to do? Tell those boys – or even just us Sarries lads?”

“I’ll tell the rest of Sarries when I’ve got it a bit more worked out,” Owen starts firmly, because that, he knows. “Other people… Maybe. I think I’ll leave that until I know more myself, though – when I know where I’m at on that side of things.”

“Fair,” Jamie allows, nodding. “Sorry if I pressured you into, you know… saying anything before you wanted to, by the way. I didn’t realise…”

“It’s fine,” Owen assures immediately, waving the apology away. “I was probably going to tell you soon anyway, and…”

Glancing away, he offers a shrug.

“It’s been helpful,” he admits. “Talking to you.”

That gets a small smile out of his friend, which brings warmth curling in his chest when he catches it in the corner of his vision. They don’t often get anywhere near this… ‘deep’, but Jamie’s one of the few he feels comfortable to admit his more personal feelings to, and he’s certainly known Jamie for too long to be unaware that it works both ways.

“If you get Grindr, you need to tell me,” Jamie announces suddenly, smile widening to a grin as Owen rolls his eyes, cheeks flaming.

Despite his embarrassment, he can’t help a small laugh at the sight of Jamie’s eager delight, nor can he begrudge his friend the chance for a little bit of teasing.

It’s only a week later that Owen pulls himself together – encouraged by how well talking to Jamie went – and sums up the courage to come out to George, Jackson and Will. All at the same time.

“So… Hang on,” Will starts, setting down his coffee with a frown and glancing around the small café much the same way Owen had five minutes ago as he leans in. “You’ve split up with Georgie because you’ve suddenly realised you don’t even like women?”

Awkwardly, Owen shrugs, then shoves Jamie with a huff when the hooker nods happily.

“Not exactly,” he mutters.

“Exactly!” Jamie declares, the glance he shoots in Owen’s direction betraying how much of his desire to confirm Will’s question is in an attempt to tease Owen himself. (All of it. It’s _entirely _down to him trying to tease Owen, and the worst bit is that he knows that Owen knows, and still doesn’t care.)

“No, we were going that way anyway,” Owen settles for telling Will, a sigh on his lips as he shifts his position to land a solid kick on Jamie’s shin under the table. “I mean, me not liking women was definitely… _part_ of it. Probably a big part. It’s… It’s a bit difficult to keep it going when you’re not attracted to your own wife.”

George snorts, Jackson’s eyes crinkling with amusement at Owen’s dry words.

“So you do know that for certain?” Will checks. “That you don’t like women?”

At Owen’s nod, Jackson tilts his head, brow creasing, but lets Will keep talking.

“And the rest… You’re still working out, yeah?” Will continues, the furrow in Jackson’s brow deepening as Owen nods again. “But you _think_ you like men… Just not, you know…”

“Yeah,” Owen confirms, nodding a third time, then tilts his head expectantly as Jackson draws in a breath.

“Isn’t it a bit… _quick_?” the blond man asks, caution audible inn his tone as he eyes Owen warily. “One moment you’re married – mate, you’ve got a _kid_ with her – and next, you’re into men?”

“I knew he liked men,” Will jumps back in before Owen can even begin to gather an explanation for why it doesn’t _feel_ like it’s gone quick – at least, not anymore – and why he now feels so sure of it. “I thought he was bi – and just didn’t want to tell us.”

“Faz, not being honest to the point of death?” Jamie mocks, drawing in an overly horrified breath as he leans over to feel Will’s forehead, the other man shrugging him away with a snort. “Mate, you feeling alright?”

“Shove off,” Owen tells him, then looks back to Will. “Georgie said you’d noticed. Mum and Dad were the same, to be honest.”

“Fair enough,” Jackson shrugs, apparently unconcerned, and Owen is surprised to feel himself relax; he didn’t realise that he’d managed to wind himself up so much over this, no matter how deeply he cares about these men.

Now, George is the only one not to have spoken, he registers, but even as he turns his head in the lock’s direction, George draws in a deep breath and smiles.

“Thanks for telling us, mate,” is all the tall man offers, the acceptance in his tone as warm as if he’d reached over to physically embrace Owen.

Owen can’t summon the words for anything more than a nod in response; there isn’t really any way to show his appreciation for those words – for this entire conversation – without sounding like an idiot, and while he’s more inclined to risk that with these lads, he thinks he’s already hit his quota for the month in that regard. Jamie, luckily, seems to understand that he’s done with this topic, the rest of his friends following along easily to steer their chat onto other lines as Owen slumps a little in his seat and tries not to breathe too noticeable a sigh of relief.

Everything seems to be going so well at the moment. Yes, his and Georgie’s marriage is still up in the air in terms of whether they’ll get a formal divorce, he’s not _really_ sure what his sexuality is or what he’s going to do about it – he certainly doesn’t plan on being alone forever, even if he’s in no particular rush to find someone at the moment – and he still needs to come out to a lot of people, never mind that he doesn’t plan to be an outright closet case for the rest of his career, but… he’s alright with it. He’s _content_.

Certainly, he feels a lot better than he did when his marriage was crumbling around him and he couldn’t work out why, and really, he thinks there’s a lightness to everything that he hasn’t felt in many years – since early childhood, even.

The burden of unconscious shame is not one he misses.

The nervous cough at his side gets Owen’s attention, and he glances away from his teammates and his meal, towards the waitress who’s been serving them, to offer her a smile. She’s pretty, he notes vaguely, and it doesn’t bother him in the slightest that the observation doesn’t make her seem at all attractive, but he thinks he can see why some of the lads have been trying to coax him into talking to her since they first arrived.

“I, um…” she starts, smoothing her hands down her uniform and drawing in a deep breath before offering a shy smile of her own. “I wondered if you’d… like to get a drink some time…?”

Owen can’t say he’s entirely _too_ surprised by the question – he’s been informed by enough of the lads that she’s been checking him out to trust what they’re telling him – but it still takes him a moment to gather himself before he can even begin to formulate a reply, blinking at the hastily scribbled-down number she hands him on a lightly creased napkin.

“I’m sorry,” is the first think he comes up with, and as her face starts to fall, redness lighting in her cheeks, he feels the need to console her, his mouth moving before he’s even thought about what he’s saying. “I don’t swing that way.”

Her eyes widen, understanding flooding her features as she relaxes slightly, and Owen’s relieved to see the hurt of rejection fade away despite the disappointed slump to her shoulders.

“Sorry I assumed,” she tells him, straightening up after a second to compose herself, then with a small, uncertain smile, she starts to collect their plates.

It’s only when she moves along the table that Owen registers the unusual quiet on either side of him, never mind the many sets of eyes that bore into his skull as shock and confusion invade the features of the men closest to him. Luckily, they have the sense to stay quiet until their waitress is gone, their impatience apparently overcoming them as soon as she’s out of earshot with Elliot beating everyone to the punch to echo, incredulous, “_You don’t swing that way_?”

Apparently, it’s time to have this conversation, then.

“Right,” Owen coughs, nervous for a second before he composes himself with the reminder that these are his friends, and that everyone else he’s spoken to about it has been fine. “Yeah, I’ve been trying to work out when to tell you for the last few weeks…”

“You’re _gay_?” Brad demands, not sounding accusatory so much as simply shocked, and there’s nothing for Owen to do but draw in a deep breath and get ready to speak.

“Not exactly…”

_Here we go, then._

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah... So I wrote that...


End file.
